Taylor, who has played alongside Lonergan at Geelong for a decade, said the thought of Lonergan finishing his brave AFL career in such unfortunate fashion encouraged he and the Cats backline to lift.

“Certainly us as defenders spoke about that. We wanted to make sure that it wasn't his last game the previous week, we really wanted him to have another crack at it,” Taylor told reporters on Saturday morning.

Harry Taylor kept Lance Franklin goalless.Source: AAP

“We didn’t exactly need any extra motivation, there was already a lot on the line. But just knowing that a good mate, who’d had such a great career for us, would potentially end the way it did was something that I was certainly spurred on by and I wanted to play to make sure he got another shot.”

Fellow Cats defender Andrew Mackie said Lonergan didn’t tell him about the illness when they communicated via text on Friday afternoon, but said he “looked pretty ordinary when I saw him at the footy”.

Mackie said he had spoken with Lonergan on Saturday morning and was “very happy”.

“We weren’t going to bow out without him having another run,” Mackie told Fox Sports News’ AFL Today.

“It was great that we got it done for him and keep our season alive.

“Hopefully we can have another couple more weeks together and that’ll be really special for us.”

Scott called Taylor around six hours before the first bounce to inform him that Lonergan was ill and that he might be needed in defence to play on Franklin.

But even at short notice, Taylor was ready for the challenge.

“I just said ‘no worries, I’ll be ready’,” Taylor said.

“It’s not long, I guess, to prepare, but I’d played on him before a lot of times and you understand how the great players move and what their strengths are, so all that experience from the past helped a bit.”

Taylor paid tribute to Scott’s football nous and how some of his inspired moves on Friday night made it easier for the Cats to return to their brand.

“His strategic brain is unbelievable. He’s always had a fantastic gift of understanding the trends of the game and see where the game’s heading,” Taylor said of Scott.

“He made some changes during the week of what we needed to do — I’m sure the other coaches had input as well — but a few things we tinkered with and made a big difference and a lot easier to play the way we wanted to.

“We just wanted to play a much more Geelong-like brand of football. We didn’t think we did that well enough last week … We changed a few things during the week and walking off the ground, satisfaction was a really good word to describe it.”

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